The Bay State Butter Tongues took their confident 4-man squad to Nashoba Valley this week to face the unbeaten but undermanned Sasquatch in a much-anticipated matchup of two highly touted teams, neither of whom is shy on the message boards nor on the field. Staff aces Nick O’Keefe and Jon Anderson traded zeroes throughout regulation amidst a steady rain and with the sunlight faltering behind the cloud cover and horizon. O’Keefe got himself out of a bases-loaded jam in the 1st with a strikeout and was saved in the 2nd by cannon-armed left fielder Matt Mullen’s outfield put-out with Dave O’Grady trying to score from 2nd on a single. O’Keefe was never in serious trouble again. Anderson, meanwhile, got out of his own 2nd inning trouble with a bases-loaded K and went 6 innings deep without another runner passing 2nd base. He picked up 13 strikeouts along the way – a necessity given the defensive hole in right field that their 2-man team left him. Relievers Kyle DeFrancesco and Dave O’Grady both entered in 7th inning, trying to get their teams the W as the rainfall increased. With the light of day all but lost, the game’s composition changed drastically as sudden death took effect in the 7th. The Butter Tongues put up a 4-spot in the top half and the Sasquatch replied with 4 runs of their own in the bottom of the inning. The 7th inning ended on a close play at first with the winning run headed home, extending this contest to everyone’s shared displeasure. Mullen and DeFrancesco combined for 4 more RBI in the top of the 8th and the Sasquatch were only able to muster 2 runs on a single by O’Grady before he ended the game with a blind strikeout, heading home with a 6-4 loss in 8.

The league looks forward to the next matchup of these 2 strong teams on July 16th, when hopefully the post-game comments will have more to do with the play of both sides and not the playing conditions.Mike Houle, Associate Staff Writer

Worcester fans had little time to bask in the warm glory of victory this Wednesday as the Burlington Blaze brought the heat to finish out their double header. To the surprise of the league Weemen owner, Colin Amidon, opted to throw in their game versus the Bassholes earlier in the evening making himself ineligible for the mound vs. the Blaze. Burlington #1 and Colin’s brother Devin however was warmed up and ready to go for this one.

While not quite as dominant in this match up Devin was able to hold the Weemen scoreless and helped himself by knocking in 3 RBI’s of his own in the outing. D Amidon drives in two of these RBI’s by way of his 3rd Home Run which ties him for the league lead. Though somewhat disappointed in his own performance on the day, Jon Costanza, knocked in the remaining run off an impressive RBI double. Newly acquired Free Agent, Tim Anderson, was unable to reproduce last weeks offensive contribution and goes 0 for 11 on the night. Tim is new to the team but also new to the league and should settle down and become effective again as the weeks move on. The good news for Burlington is that this victory breaks the losing streak they suffered and brings them to 500 on the season. With Captain Mike Taft returning next week the Blaze hope to stay on track through the remainder of interleague play.

Worcester continue to struggle in the batters box and are tied for the leagues worst in “Runs For” with a scarce 7. This should come as a surprise and remains a mystery to most. Both Amidon and Ellis have been feared at the plate in their careers and do possess home run power. Pat Scoops Coop Keating is also coming of a multi home run winter season and an offensively impressive off season. One could speculate as to what ales the Weemen bats but none can say for sure. The team is batting .200 this season and will surely need to get that bats going if they want to take home some more w’s. Rumors surrounding winter league super star Kirk Monbleau have been making their rounds. If Monbleau were to enter the league the Weemen would have exclusive rights to him for a week and would undoubtingly pounce on the opportunity. Monbleau may rival Malcolm Cone-Coleman as most feared bat in the league and seems to only get better as time goes on. Kirk would surely provide the spark at the plate the Weemen have desperately been looking for and Weemen fans hold their breath as this story develops. Written by Jon Anderson, NEAWL Staff

In an attempt the continue their dominance of NEAWL, the Beasts shipped up to Flushing Pond to take on the Bass Holes. This game would be huge for both teams; a Beast win would keep them undefeated, while a Bass Hole victory would help them continue their climb up the Grenade division standings. Dave Grubb got the start for the Beasts, and looked to set the hook early. Unfortunately for him, the Bass Holes were full of life, and ran with the line. GM Dave Sullivan and baby bass Mike Thompson each found themselves on base twice in the first, combining for 3 walks, a hit, 2 RBI’s, and 2 runs scored. Mike Houle who was the lone Bass Hole not to reach base in the first, proved that the Bass Hole team motto was a motto and not a myth; taking a ball directly to the head with the bases loaded, and refusing his base. Many applauded his act of “manliness”, while others laughed as he ended the inning by the end of the at-bat. Luckily for Houle, Tim McGoewn and Dave Sullivan made sure that faux pas wouldn’t cost their team. Megow went the distance only allowing 3 base runners on 3 hits, and never giving anyone a free pass to first. Sullivan, showing his range and arm, made sure any ball that was hit to left field ended up as a recorded out.

This win capped a double header for the Bass Holes, but left many scratching their heads. The Bass Holes just beat the only undefeated team left in NEAWL, after losing to one of the few teams that were win-less going into the week. Where do they go from here?Bass Holes - 2Beasts - 0Written by Dave O'Grady, NEAWL Staff

On Wednesday the Billerica Beasts and Burlington Blaze faced off for the first time this season. Burlington was without its captain in this tilt but played strong none the less. Blaze ace, Devin Amidon, secures 11 strike outs in the effort without giving a single walk. Equally as strong, Beasts pitcher Brian Cosentino matches Amidon’s 11k’s while allowing only two walks. Burlington’s best chance at a run came in the very first inning as Jon Costanza ripped a deep base hit into right field with two runners on. Tim Anderson’s speed wasn’t quite enough to make the second to home transition and he had to be held up at third. Burlington did not threaten after this point and some costly errors allow the Beasts to drive in a walk off rbi single. Billerica was the offensive superior in the match up with 5 hits and the game winning RBI goes to Greg Guluzian. This game marks the third loss in row for the Blaze. While Billerica was the favorite coming in, GM Mike Taft surely wanted to start off interleague play with a win. In this downward trend the Blaze have fallen 2 games behind division leading Nashoba Valley and now sit 4th overall in the league. Burlington hopes to get back to their winning ways as interleague play continues and Devin Amidon would cherish a win over older brother Colin when they match up against the Weemen later this evening. Billerica seems to be modeling their team after the New England Patriots and play to the strength of their opponents every week. Four of the Beasts five wins have come by a single run. With a 5-0 record it’s tough to critique the teams methods but it is hard not to question Billerica’s effectiveness without starting Pitcher Brian Cosentino. Cosentino a rookie this year and an unknown coming into the season has been nothing but spectacular from the bump. At a quarter of the way through the season he must be an early favorite for Rookie Of The Year and KAAPE awards. In 20 innings of work Brian has earned 44 k’s and sports a league leading .50 ERA for starting pitchers. The Beasts ace is no slouch in the batters box either. Cosentino leads the squad in offense with a .409 batting average and is just shy of Matt Austin’s 11 hits with 9 of his own. Austin too has been an effective contributor for the beasts and holds 5 of the teams 11 RBI’s. While the team only has 11 runs on the season they score when they need to and have been amazingly effective in the league thus far. The team comprised entirely of rookies (Aside from the yet to be seen Cone-Coleman) has nowhere but up to go from here and look to be the Bones team to beat come August.

The Worcester Weemen and the Flushing Pond Bass Holes faced off for each team’s first inter-divisional match-up. With the Weemen looking to record their first win, they shocked analysts by pitching ace Colin Amidon, not saving his innings for the much anticipated Amidon/Amidon match-up against the Burlington Blaze later in the evening. Amidon, coming off a 13 strikeout performance in his last start, looked to keep up the same pace, striking out the side in order to start the game. The Bass Holes managed 2 base runners in the 2nd inning; GM David Sullivan lead off with a walk, and Mike “Nuggets” Thompson picked up a single (the lone Bass Hole hit on the day). These would be the only Bass Holes to leave the batter’s box. Amidon shook off the base runners, and again recorded all outs by way of K in the 2nd. Throughout the remainder of the game Amidon struck out another 8 batters (the side in order in the 3rd and the 5th), giving his Weemen their best chance at a win.

Flushing Pond’s Mike Thompson got the nod for the Bass Holes. While he did not display the same dominance as Amidon on the mound, Thompson proved to be tough to get to. Thompson only allowed 3 base runners in the first 2 innings (his only 2 walks of the day and 1 hit), but seemed vulnerable in the 3rd, giving up 3 hits, before the Bass Hole defensive prowess helped him escaped without any runs. In the bottom of the 5th, the Weemen were looking to avoid an extra innings battle. Things did not start out well, with Patrick “Coop” “Scoops” Keating flying out in the first at bat, and Jeremy Ellis going down looking on the first pitch. With 2 outs and no men on, Amidon stepped to the plate, looking to help himself out. Amidon swung at Thompson’s second pitch, made contact, and ended up beating out the grounder to first base. Next, “Scoops” looked to get on base again for the first time since the first inning; working the count, and then ripping a 2-1 double into the outfield, moving Amidon into scoring position. Ellis now had men at 2nd and 3rd, with two outs, only needing a base knock to get that first W. Thompson looked a bit frazzled, but was not finished, quickly going up 1-2. Ellis got a piece of Thompson’s 4th pitch, and legged it to first. Sullivan charged the ball, fielded it cleanly and made the toss to the mound. “SAFE!”, was the call, and the Weemen were now proud owners of their very first win. Amidon finished with 14 k’s, and has now recorded 27 strikeouts in his last two outings. While he has finally seemed to have returned to top form, the Weemen offense needs to come into it’s own. Amidon will only be able to carry them so far.Written by Dave O'Grady, NEAWL Staff

The first inter-divisional game for both the Nashoba Valley Sasquatch and the XL Tribe Wiffle Ball Ninjas featured a matchup of staff aces Jon Anderson and Mike King in a driving rain. King, coming off a no-no vs the BTs in his last appearance, was looking to prove the strength of the Bones division arms against one of the best overall teams in NEAWL while the Squatch set out to showcase their impressive depth, missing league-leading hitter Dave Tammaro.

King started off the game striking out 5 of the first 6 batters he faced before control issues got the best of him. Walking 8 straight batters in the 2nd, King let the Squatch get the early 5-0 lead after 2 while Anderson allowed only 1 baserunner in his first 2 frames. King struggled again to find the zone in the 3rd and was pulled for #2 Szymon Godzina after 3 more walks and an RBI single by Anderson. Godzina allowed 2 inherited runners to score before finally ending the away half of the 3rd down 9-0. The Tribe had a glimmer of hope, after a leadoff single in their half of the 3rd, squashed quickly by Anderson’s 3 straight K’s. Dave O’Grady picked up his 2nd long ball of the season in the 4th, a 2-run job to put the game firmly out of reach, and all Anderson had to do was strike out the side again to close the door on this 11-0 mercy.The story of the day may have been the rain, but zone control decided this one. Anderson K’ed 9 in 4 innings, walking only 1, while Tribe pitching combined for 15 free passes giving the Squatch a big 5th win.Mike Houle, Associate Staff Writer

With each week’s release of the NEAWL Power Rankings, NEAWL Facebook blows up with comments, league HQ at Network Drive is alive with heated discussion, and at least one team is left wondering how their ranking was determined. Senior Staff Writer Jon Anderson submitted a poignant expose on the potential power problems just 5 weeks ago, so we will set aside the broader topic of ranking validity as a whole and discuss an interesting theme that has emerged in each week’s debate: a potential disparity in team strength between the divisions. Three of the 4 top teams in the current Power Rankings are Bones division teams, but the more interesting aspect to this discussion is the nature of the intra-divisional games that have been played to date. With the exception of a week 1 blowout in BTs over Tribe, Bones division games are being decided by an average of just over 1 run (1.43). Additionally, no Bones squad has posted more than 4 runs in an outing since that week 1 BT drubbing. Meanwhile, over in Grenade division, the average game is decided by 7.25 runs. Many will rightly point to inflated numbers via the Chiefs who have so far struggled with run prevention, but excluding Chiefs games, Grenade games are still settled by an average of 3.25 runs. What accounts for Grenade teams putting up over 2x more runs per game (even excluding previously mentioned “outliers”, it’s a total of 3.1 runs per game vs 6.75)? Some have theorized that pitching is superior in the Bones division, while others point out that the lack of run production may just as likely be due to weaker bats in the Bones circuit. Similarly does Grenade division suffer from a lack of power arms or merely possess a bounty of big bats? This author believes it unreasonable to attempt to explain the differences given the small sample size and furthermore irresponsible to point to one division as superior when inter-divisional play has yet to begin. In another 4 weeks if one division is dominating the other in inter-division games, we may have grounds for discussion, but my hypothesis is that 8 more games per team will show many players and teams regressing towards the mean and demonstrate relative divisional parity. I would be remiss not to mention the foolishness of questioning the structuring of the divisions, in defense of our humble commissioner and his general managers. The top pitcher in the league to date (a Beast in multiple senses of the word) was a free agent acquisition after the divisions were determined, as, I believe, was the ace of the Tribe. Those moves both paid huge dividends for their GMs and the Bones division would look very different without them. Other teams (see Weemen) took a gamble on an unknown who dropped out of the league before opening day and have subsequently suffered without a steady bat in their lineup, or have just failed to find consistency in a starter (Chiefs). Some players "couldn't pitch at all" (every current Basshole) and others were expecting to "hit much better outside" (sorry, BTs) and it hasn't quite come to fruition. Only the Squatch and Blaze can probably claim to be what they expected at the conclusion of this season’s draft and it is no coincidence they’re 1-2 in the Grenade division. Should the end of the season come to prove that the divisions were imbalanced, this should just be a reminder of the difficulty of predicting a team’s future success and not justification for a pillorying of those who made these predictions. Mike Houle, Associate Staff Writer

The Worcester WeeMen were looking to bounce back against the Bones Division's hottest team, the Billerica Beasts. GM Colin Amidon took to the mound in an attempt to tame the Beasts. Amidon, who some may say has lost his stuff since the NEAWL Winter Season, looked strong early on, and held Beasts' top slugger Matt Austin from reaching base in his first 4 at-bats. Beast hype man, Greig Guluzian started off a 3rd inning rally, racking up 2 hits, a run, and an RBI all in that inning. Beasts' ace Brian Consentino, helped himself that inning as well, with a hit and an RBI. Amidon settled down for the remainder of the game, striking out 6 more batters, ending with 13 K's in total.One would think that only giving up 3 runs, and striking out 13 would put the WeeMen in position to snag their first win. Well maybe, but not Consentino. Consentino came out with the same ferocity as Amidon, and struck out 11 of the first 12 batters he faced. Consentino only allowed 2 base runners in the game, finshed with 13 strikeouts, and, oh yeah, no hits. Across town, the Tribe's ace Mike King no-hit the BT's, giving the Beasts a 2-game lead over their closest divisional opponent. The Bones Division is shaping up a little different than most had expected before the season began. We look foward to see how these teams fair in interleague play starting next week.

The Flushing Pond Bassholes hosted the Burlington Blaze for their second meeting of the season. The Bassholes were looking to continue winning while the Blaze were looking to get back on the winning track after dropping one to the Sasquatch.

The Blaze got off to an early lead with newly acquired free agent, The Wizard, Pumpkin Butt, Tim Anderson, getting an RBI single in his first at bat in the NEAWL. The Blaze would get another run in that inning to take a 2-0 lead. The Bassholes quickly tied it at the bottom of the inning. The Blaze got ahead again, however, scoring two runs, but the Bassholes were relentless scoring 4 runs in the bottom of the 4th inning.

Mike Taft was the losing pitcher for the Blaze giving up 6 runs, striking out 3, walking 1 and allowing 9 hits. Tim McGeown got his first win of the season giving up 4 runs, striking out 8, walking 6, and allowing 9 hits.

Offensive players of the game were Devin Amidon going 5/6 with 1 RBI and Tim McGeown 3-5 with 2 RBIs. Jon Costanza also contributed for the Blaze with 2RBIs, as well as Dave Sullivan for the Bassholes.